Über das Kunstwerk

Climbing the South Wall (-40), Kunstwerk von Vanguard Games

This print is concept art for a series of video games set in the mythical world of Mistbound and shows a rock climber scaling the imposing South Wall.

Mistbound is a scifi universe created by Amsterdam-based video game studio Vanguard Games. In this universe the locations South Wall and gorge North Pass exemplify the visual and thematic contrasts that make up the Mistbound world. Mistbound is a place were lush, friendly environments can change very rapidly in barren, harsh locations. South Wall for example is part of a gorge at the heart of a desert. At the top the sun shines ruthlessly but if you descend further down the climate and environment becomes more friendly. The number behinds the artwork's title indicates how far down the gorge the climber is.

Mistbound forms the heart of a series of critically-acclaimed games that have steadily been coming out of Amsterdam studio Vanguard Games for the last 6 years. Mistbound has become a unique project undergoing continual expansion and evolution, entirely appropriate for a fictional world whose main theme is industrial cultivation.

The world of Mistbound is also a social commentary on the lust for greed and power. It is a place that has suffered under decades of exhaustion of natural resources and continuous conflicts over what little there is left. People are forced to find ever more inhospitable environments to live. Only a few areas where man has almost gone are slowly restoring. The dramatic contrasts between these lovely, fragile and almost naif environments and the expansive and harsh climates where life is a fight for survival is reinforced by the use of Clair-obscur or Chiaroscuro. A visual technique used in many of the Vanguard Games' visuals to exaggerate the contrasts between light and dark even further. Maybe some of the Amsterdam roots of the studio are still showing there, because famous Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn was a master of these techniques.

These contrasts between hardness, aggression and softness can also be found in the mechanical designs of Mistbound. Machines are made of a variety of materials. Steam, steel and natural fabrics evoke fin de siècle. They are elaborate and clever designs build for industrial digging, mining and warfare but they almost feel endearing with their cartoon-like form and cartoonish animation. It underlines the foolishness of mans will to dominate nature.

But next to that all Mistbound also evokes that classic adventure feeling. The urge to travel and to find new horizons without knowing what lies behind them. Hence the name Mistbound.

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Weitere Infos über Vanguard Games

Vanguard Games is an Amsterdam-based game studio that started 6 years ago with the development of a series of critically acclaimed game titles based on the world of Mistbound, the creative brainchild of former creative director Marcel du Long and Harm van Dinter.